Donald Savage
Headquarters, Washington, DC March 4, 1999
(Phone: 202/358-1547)
Bill Steigerwald
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
(Phone: 301/286-5017)
Annette Trinity Stevens
Montana State University, Bozeman
(Phone: 406/994-5607)
NOTE TO EDITORS: N99-13
SCIENTISTS TO ANNOUNCE POTENTIAL TOOL FOR FORECASTING ENORMOUS
SOLAR ERUPTIONS AT MARCH 9 SPACE SCIENCE UPDATE
Scientists will announce on Tuesday, March 9, 1999, their
discovery of a possible way to forecast several days in advance
the largest and most violent explosions on the Sun's outer
atmosphere. The explosions, called coronal mass ejections, are as
powerful as billions of nuclear explosions and can affect radio
communications, electrical power systems and satellites orbiting
Earth. The announcement will be made at the next Space Science
Update, scheduled for 1 p.m. EST at NASA Headquarters, Washington,
DC. The scientists will discuss how they made the discovery
using images from the Japanese/U.S. Yohkoh satellite, what we know
about such explosions, and how this new tool will be used in
forecasting solar activity and its effects on Earth.
Panelists will be:
* Dr. Richard Canfield, Research Professor, Physics Department,
Montana State University, Bozeman
* Dr. Sarah Gibson, postdoctoral fellow, University of
Cambridge, England
* Dr. David M. Rust, Senior Physicist, The Johns Hopkins
University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD
* Dr. Alphonse Sterling, solar physicist, Computational Physics
Inc, Fairfax, VA, where he acts as a contractor to the Naval
Research Laboratory (NRL), and Yohkoh science team
* Dr. George Withbroe, Science Director for the Sun-Earth
Connections science theme, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC,
panel moderator.
The program will originate from NASA Headquarters
Auditorium, 300 E St., SW, Washington, DC, and will be carried
live on NASA TV with two-way question-and-answer capability for
reporters covering the event from participating NASA centers.
NASA Television is broadcast on the GE2 satellite located
on Transponder 9C, at 85 degrees West longitude, frequency 3880.0
Mhz, audio 6.8 MHz. Audio of the broadcast will be available on
voice circuit at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on 407/867-
1220/1230/1240.
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